What Sacrifice Is Asked Of Most Fortunate?

MATTHEW MILLER TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES

You can ask Americans to spend $166 billion to get the job done in Iraq and in Afghanistan (that's $79 billion so far, plus the president's new request for $87 billion).

You can ask us to tolerate modest budget deficits while spending what's needed to meet a major national challenge.

But President Bush can't ask us for $166 billion for Iraq while he runs record $500 billion budget deficits and doubles the national debt -- all in order to give $300 billion a year in tax cuts over the next decade mostly to the best-off people in America.

And Bush certainly can't do this when he's also saying there's no money for huge unmet domestic needs in health care, education and more.

No, this is the moment when Bush's radical fiscal irresponsibility has veered into radical fiscal immorality.

Consider the magnitude of the hoax: The outer limit of Bush's phony "compassion" is a health plan that would reach 6 million of today's 42 million uninsured. By my math, 42 minus 6 equals Bush's "compassion gap."

But that's only one of the countless Bush gaps under which America now suffers. There's the Bush jobs gap (more than 3 million lost). The Bush growth gap (too little). The Bush budget gap (record $500 billion-plus deficits). The Bush ally gap (which leaves us footing the full bill abroad). The Bush poverty gap (the poverty rate is up, though few have noticed).

And, of course, the growing Bush honesty gap -- which involves denial of all of the above (Remember: White House economic adviser Larry Lindsey was fired partly for daring to say Iraq would cost $100 billion to $200 billion).

The president and those advising him must think we're as dumb as they are cynical. That if Bush goes on TV one night and invokes the memory of Sept. 11, we'll suspend all powers of reasoning and fork over another $87 billion, no questions asked.

But as my colleagues at the Center for American Progress point out, $87 billion is seven times what the federal government spends on low-income schools. It's eight times what the nation spends on Pell grants for college aid -- at a time when the states are hiking tuitions at state colleges to cope with their own budget deficits, which in total come to less than (you guessed it) $87 billion.

Eighty-seven billion dollars is 10 times what the federal government spends on environmental protection and 87 times what it spends on after-school programs.

This is not to say America can't pay for what needs to be done in Iraq -- though it's clearer every day that this arrogant White House either grossly bungled the postwar planning or concealed what it knew to be its likely dimensions; it will be interesting to see whether Bushies prefer to defend themselves as incompetent or dishonest.

But the key point -- now finding its way into John Kerry's rhetoric, as it should into the critique of other Democrats -- is that since this war was conducted at a time of our choosing, there is no excuse for not having properly planned for the postwar scenario and for not having managed our international relationships to assure that the burden of Iraq's renewal is shared, along with its benefits.

Which brings us back to Bush's fiscal immorality. Bush says that our effort in Iraq will "require sacrifice." Please tell us, Mr. Bush, what sacrifice is being asked of the most fortunate Americans?

In ordinary times, claiming that tax cuts mostly for the rich are needed to boost economic growth would merely be garden-variety political fraud. When Bush makes this case in the context of financing a war on our kids' credit card while shortchanging critical needs at home, it is morally obscene.

Democrats need to make a stand here. They must insist that new spending for Iraq be paid for, dollar for dollar, by repealing tax cuts going to the wealthiest. They should be prepared to filibuster in the Senate to draw national attention to Bush's fiscal immorality.

It's a defining showdown they can win. If Democrats frame this debate properly and speak with one voice, Bush won't be able to sell the con that Democrats "don't support our troops." The issue is how you pay for it. The contrast couldn't be starker.

We've reached a tipping point in public opinion with Bush's $87 billion speech, in which the president's radical fiscal immorality can be easily explained and understood.